Overcoming Exam Anxiety

Practical tools to stay calm and think clearly under pressure.

You know the feeling. The night before, your stomach is tight and your mind keeps racing through everything you might not know. On the morning of the paper, your heart is pounding, your hands are damp, and for a moment the thing you studied has vanished.

If that sounds familiar, two things are worth knowing straight away. First, it is very common, including among students who are well prepared. Second, there are practical things you can do that really help. This guide is about those things. It is not a cure for every kind of anxiety, and near the end we say when to ask for more help.

What is going on in your body

When your brain decides something matters and might go badly, it prepares you for action. Your heart rate goes up, you breathe faster, and adrenaline rises. That response is meant to help you, and in small amounts it does. The trouble is that a hall full of desks is not a threat you can run from, so the energy has nowhere to go, and it starts to feel like panic.

Knowing this takes some of the fear out of it. A racing heart does not mean you are failing. It means your body is switched on.

Separate what you control from what you do not

The ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus began his short handbook with a simple split: some things are up to us and some are not. It is surprisingly useful before an exam.

• You cannot control. The questions on the paper, who is marking it, how hard the other candidates found it. Worrying about these uses up energy and changes nothing.
• You can control. How well you prepare from now, how you sleep, how you read the paper, how you respond to a hard question, and the next thing you write.

When the worry starts, sort it into one of the two lists. If it belongs on the “cannot control” list, you are allowed to put it down. Then pick something from the other list and do it.

Reframe the nerves as energy

Anxiety and excitement feel alike in the body: fast heart, alert mind. In a 2014 study, Alison Wood Brooks at Harvard Business School found that people who told themselves “I am excited” before a stressful task did better than people who tried to tell themselves to calm down. The study was small and this is not magic, but the idea is practical.

Instead of “I am panicking,” try: “My body is getting me ready. This energy can help me think.” You are not lying to yourself, because that is exactly what the adrenaline is for.

Slow your breathing

You cannot argue with a racing heart, but you can slow your breathing, and your heart tends to follow. Try this at your desk, before the paper starts or when you freeze in the middle of it: breathe in through your nose for about four seconds, and breathe out slowly through your mouth for about six. Make the outbreath longer than the inbreath. Do it five or six times. It is quiet, quick and no one will notice.

Make the exam familiar

Fear feeds on the unknown. One of the best ways to take the edge off is to rehearse the real thing. Before exam week, take a past paper, sit in a quiet place with a timer, put your notes away, and do it. Then mark it.

You will find that the paper is less frightening the second and third time, because you have already survived it. You will also find what to fix while there is still time. Our guide on using past questions goes through this in detail.

The night before and the morning of

• The night before. Do a light review of your own questions, stop at a reasonable hour, and sleep. A rested brain recalls more than a tired one. Do not start new, hard material.
• Prepare the practical things. Pens, calculator, exam slip, a watch, how you will get there. Fewer small worries leave more room for the big one.
• The morning. Eat something, drink water, and avoid the group chat of people comparing how little they studied.
• On arrival. Take a few slow breaths. Resist the urge to review in the last five minutes. You already know what you know.

In the exam hall

Read the instructions and the whole paper first. Begin with a question you feel good about, to settle yourself. If your mind goes blank, stop, breathe out slowly, and write down anything related you can remember, even roughly. Then move on to another question and come back later. The answer often returns once you have calmed down and got going.

Do not spend the whole time worrying about a question you did not answer well. Once you hand it in, it is done. Put your effort into the next one.

When it is more than nerves

Some anxiety is bigger than any technique in a guide like this. If you feel anxious most of the time, struggle to sleep or eat, have panic attacks, or avoid exams entirely, please speak to someone. A school counsellor, a university counselling unit, a doctor, or a person you trust at home are all good places to start. Asking for help is not weakness, and most people who do find it makes a big difference.